MAGNETOSOME FORMATION

Introduction

Motivation

Studies of synthetic biology produced various E. coli which functions are multiply expanded. To utilize such E. coli in real world, it is necessary to place them proper spot and have them stay there. However, we have very limited technique to realize it. Solving this problem and utilizing transformed E. coli, we tried to create E. coli which have magnet inside their cells. Therefore, we focused on magnetotactic bacteria and introduce its gene to E. coli.

Fig. 1 Imagine if we can move E. coli as we want.

About magnetotactic bacteria

In 1975, microbiologist Richard P. Blakemore first discovered a kind of magnetotactic bacteria, which now known as Magnetospirillum magnetotacticum (MS-1). He observed this bacterium under his microscope and realized that they move along the magnetic field lines of Earth's magnetic field and named this microorganism as magnetotactic bacteria (or MTB)[1]. After that, many other species of MTB were discovered, such as Magnetospirillum magneticum (AMB-1), Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense (MSR-1). And most of these MTB are only able to thrive in an oxic-anoxic transition zone[2].

The most impressive feature of them is the magnetosomes (Fig. 2). The magnetosomes are intracellular structures that consist of magnetic, iron-mineral crystals enveloped by a membrane vesicle known as the magnetosome membrane. The magnetosome crystals typically size from 35 nm to 120 nm. Inside the MTB, the magnetosomes are organized in one or more straight chains parallel to the long axis of the cell, which function as the compass aid MTB to reach regions of optimal oxygen concentration[3].

Fig. 2 MTB has magnets inside their cell.

In M. magneticum or M. gryphiswaldense, the hypothetical formation process of magnetosome can be roughly divided into three steps (Fig. 3). The first step is vesicle formation. The inner membrane of MTB swells out and makes a vesicle. The second step is iron uptake. Transporters in the magnetosome membrane pump in Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ creating high iron ion concentration in the vesicle. The third step is biomineralization. Providing high iron ion concentration, magnetosome proteins crystalize iron ion making magnetite crystal (Fe₃O₄)[4].

Fig. 3 How a magnetosome is formed in MTB

Gene cluster involved in magnetosome formation

A gene cluster called Magnetosome Island (MAI) is a group of genes related to magnetosome formation[5].

MAI is highly conserved among MTB and contains 4 operons – mamAB operon, mamGFDC operon, mamXY operon, mms6 operon. In a previous research published early in this year, Kolinko et al. introduced these 4 operons from M. gryphiswaldense into photosynthetic bacteria Rhodospirillum rubrum, which is phylogenetically close to Magnetospirillum sp. yet does not make magnetosomes. They observed small vesicles formed in R. rubrum after these genes were introduced [6] (Fig. 4). They also demonstrated that the R. rubrum strain carrying these vesicles can be collected by a permanent magnet, showing that the small vesicles indeed function as magnetosomes.

Fig. 4 MAI plays a critical role in magnetosome formation.

To unravel the function of genes in MAI, researches had been conducted by Dirk Schüler et al. through knocking out each one of them. In MTB, magnetosomes membrane cannot be formed if either one of mamL, mamQ or mamB, which belongs to mamAB operon, is knocked out. Proteins of the three genes, though their function mechanisms are not so clear, are considered to be integrated with the inner membrane and triggers vesicle formation [4] (Fig. 5).

Magnetosome vesicle formation in E. coli

OUC-China 2013 also tried to magnetosome membrane formation in E. coli. They introduced mamL, mamQ, mamB, mamI and mamK to E. coli and indicated that introducing these genes affected localization of MamC: GFP fusion protein in the cells. However, their constructs lack RBS in proper position, that is, they did not insert RBS 6 bases upstream of start codon. In addition, they did not have a mean to detect vesicles at high resolution. These difficulties hinder their experiments from the observation of the vesicle formation. Moreover, in 2014, new paper was published and mamL, mamQ and mamB were considered to be essential for the first step of magnetosome membrane formation.

Generally, E. coli do not have any internal structures enclosed by lipid membranes. Therefore, it is impossible for E. coli to make magnetosomes without forming lipid vesicles first. As we described above, in magnetosome formation of MTB, three proteins — MamL, MamQ and MamB, are considered to be integrated with the inner membrane and triggers vesicle formation. Here we started from magnetosome vesicle formation in E. coli by expressing these three proteins. In the result below, we show successful reconstitution of the magnetosome-like vesicles in E. coli. The characterization of the induced vesicles and roles for MamL, MamQ and MamB are also discussed.

Fig. 5 mamL, Q and B are considered to relate to vesicle formation.

Experiments & Results

Cloning and Expression of mamL, mamQ and mamB.

We purchased magnetospirillum magneticum AMB-1 genome DNA was purchased from ATCC.Using the genome, mamL, mamQ, and mamB genes were amplified and cloned. During the construction of the plasmids, the RBS sequence BB_B0034 RBS was inserted to the 6 nucleotide upstream of the start codon of each gene, following the instruction of iGEM standard parts. As shown in Fig. 6, histidine tag was fused to the C-terrminus of mamL and mamQ, respectively, for the purpose of the examination of the expression. These genes were fused and placed under the constitutive promoter BBa_J23100.

Next, we checked whether our plasmid can produce M. magneticum proteins from the synthetic operon. Fig.7 shows the detection of mamQ expression by immunoblotting. In this experiment, E. coli cells grown in rich media to their stationary phase were lysed and the total protein was separated by SDS-PAGE. Proteins were transferred to PVDF membrane and examined by HRP conjugated anti-His5 antibody. When mamQ is included in the synthetic operon, a 30-kD band is clearly observed. This band is not visible when the plasmid lacks mamQ. These results indicate that at least one gene from the synthetic operon was produced in E. coli, demonstrating that both transcription and ribosome binding work normally on this construct.

We failed to detect mamL, a small hydrophobic protein with 85 amino acids. This might be attributed to some technical reasons, i.e., inefficiency of small protein capture on the membrane, or the difficulty of the solubility in the loading buffer. In any case, since mamQ protein was detected, we reasoned that the other two genes (mamL and mamB) are expressed as well.

Detection of vesicle formation by transmission electron microscope (TEM)

To check whether mamL, mamQ and mamB induce vesicle formation in E. coli, the plasmid pLQB (Fig. 6) or empty vector (pSB1C3 inserted only T7 promoter and RBS) introduced strains were grown to their stationary phase, and examined by the transmission electron microscope (TEM). In Fig. 8, randomly selected 8 photos from each strain are presented.

As shown clearly, the outer membrane of strains with pLQB plasmids tend to show winding structure, suggesting the effect of ectopic expression of membrane proteins on the membrane integrity. More interestingly, we frequently observed magnetosome-like lipid vesicles with a radius of about 100 nm in a pLQB-dependent manner. We counted the number of lipid vesicles per sections of E. coli. The observed vesicle number in pLQB transformant is significantly higher than negative control. The results are shown in Fig. 9. These results are consistent with the model that the expression of M. magneticum mamL, mamQ and mamB can induce the first step of magnetosome formation; the vesicle formation.

While the pLQB transformant could make vesicles, it is unclear whether the three proteins are all necessary for vesicle formation in E. coli or not. Interestingly, E. coli has a protein homologous to mamB, fieF (ferrous iron effulux protein F, 22% identical, 40% similar by delta-blast). We hypothesized that mamB can be eliminated from the synthetic operon without changing the efficiency of the vesicle formation. For this purpose, we constructed plasmid pLQ (Fig. 6) and introduced it to E. coli. As expected, the pLQ transformant also induced lipid vesicles (Fig. 8).

Finally we examined the difference between negative control and pLQB or pLQ (Fig. 9). These results suggest pLQ as well as pLQB would induce vesicle formation in E. coli.

Hypothetical process of magnetosome-like vesicle formation in E. coli

Out of 2000 cells inspected, we found some of the candidates of immature vesicles in the pLQ transformant. Analyses of these samples led us to a model of the magnetosome-like vesicle formation process in E. coli. In our model, the inner membrane is first curved. Then gradually the space between the inner membrane and the outer membrane become larger. Finally the vesicle is formed (Fig. 10).

Efficiency of the vesicle formation by pLQ or pLQB was evaluated

Not all sections we observed had vesicles (Fig. 11). We then evaluated our parts.

We need to know the number of E. coli individuals which made magnetosome vesicles after transformation to estimate the efficiency of our parts. However, because we used TEM to observe E. coli, samples of E. coli were fixed by resin and sliced into 100 nm thick sections from different angles. We could not determine the percentage of vesicle-formed E. coli directly from the picture of slices. Therefore, we analyzed the picture from TEM through reasonable calculation in order to determine the percentage.

Here we defined one value, vesicle-observation-rate (VOR). VOR is the average possibility that magnetosome vesicles were reflected in one section of E. coli (not one individual). Theoretical value of VOR can be calculated from the size of E. coli and the vesicles; we assumed 500 nm size magnetosome at maximum and the size of each E. coli transformant was calculated from the TEM image. We calculated parts efficiencies using theoretical and measured VOR. Specific formula and concept are described in “material and method” page.

We noticed that the transformants with pLQB or pLQ are larger than the control strain. Their average size were 1.44 (pLQ) and 2.46 (pLQB) times larger than negative control (Fig. 12).Using these values, we calculated the theoretical VORs for pLQ (21.7 %) and for pLQB (13.1 %). These are the expected probability of vesicle apperance in a single section of E. coli when all cells harbor one vesicle.

When we measured actual VORs from the experimental data, the values were 9.1 % (pLQ) and 10.0 % (pLQB). Thus, the parts efficiencies, calculated by dividing measured VOR by that theoretical one, were 41.9 % (pLQ) and 76.3 % (pLQB), respectively. These values were obtained based on a model that assumes 500 nm magnetosome at maximum size of the vesicles, to avoid over-estimation of the parts efficiency (see material and method section for more detail). We next performed more precise estimation. When we assume the vesicle size at 120 nm (magnetosome of magnetotactic bacteria is 35 to 120 nm), the probabilities of the model are 9.9 % (pLQ) and 6.0 % (pLQB) so the efficiencies are 91.9 % and 166.7 %, respectively. These results together indicate that the efficiency of vesicle formation by pLQ and pLQB introduction is reasonably high. Most, if not all, of the transformants with these plasmids harbor at least one vesicle per cell.

E. coli growth is retarded when pLQ or pLQB are introduced

The transformants with pLQ or pLQB frequently show elongated form in TEM images. We reasoned that this is due to the inefficient cytokinesis of these strains. To address this issue, we investigated the growth curve of these strains (Fig. 14). While the growth rate of pL transformant was same as the control, that of pLQ and pLQB transformants were much lower than the control strain. These results are in good consistence with the model that pLQ or pLQB expression is partially harmful for the cell division (presumably at the cytokinesis).

Reference

• [1] Blakemore, Richard. "Magnetotactic bacteria." Science 190.4212 (1975): 377-379.
• [2] Bazylinski, Dennis A. "Controlled biomineralization of magnetic minerals by magnetotactic bacteria." Chemical Geology 132.1 (1996): 191-198.
• [3] Richard B. Frankel and Dennis A. Bazylinski Magnetosome Mysteries, ASM news (2004)
• [4] Lohße A, Borg S, Raschdorf O, et al. Genetic dissection of the mamAB and mms6 operons reveals a gene set essential for magnetosome biogenesis in Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense[J]. Journal of bacteriology, 2014: JB. 01716-14.
• [5] Grünberg K, Wawer C, Tebo B M, et al. A large gene cluster encoding several magnetosome proteins is conserved in different species of magnetotactic bacteria[J]. Applied and environmental microbiology, 2001, 67(10): 4573-4582.
• [6] Müller R, Zhang Y, Schüler D. Biosynthesis of magnetic nanostructures in a foreign organism by transfer of bacterial magnetosome gene clusters[J]. 2014.
• [7] iGEM OUC-China 2013
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